When politicians start selling their tax and budget plans, numbers get obfuscated to deliberately confuse the voters. Vox has done a pretty good job of analyzing those plans with the help of the Tax Policy Center. This article is about Bernie Sanders tax revenue. It does not go into much detail on how the additional revenues would be spent (i.e. benefits). A comparison is made to Hillary Clinton's tax revenues.

It's just a bunch of numbers in tables with some discussion. If you're not into that kind of stuff, you can quit now.

Schmidt, let's be honest; none of the tax plans of any of the candidates will get the right results. Any tax plan will only work if the "government" would first scrap all their waste and research what the "word" : EFFICIENCY!!! means. Especially in the Pentagon they've never heard of wasting our tax money; let's buy some more tires for WWII Jeeps!!!

When politicians start selling their tax and budget plans, numbers get obfuscated to deliberately confuse the voters. Vox has done a pretty good job of analyzing those plans with the help of the Tax Policy Center. This article is about Bernie Sanders tax revenue. It does not go into much detail on how the additional revenues would be spent (i.e. benefits). A comparison is made to Hillary Clinton's tax revenues.

It's just a bunch of numbers in tables with some discussion. If you're not into that kind of stuff, you can quit now.

Bernie's tax plan is compared rather favorably to Trump's and Hillary's. There are a couple of open ended teasers but otherwise okay. But I am somewhat disappointed by the minor tax on speculative trading. That trading is now dangerous to cause another crash. I was hoping he would have put a punitive tax on derivatives and an enticing break for entrepreneurial investing.

Overall, Bernie is proposing a modest net-tax increase when you consider all of the new government spending; over the 10 year period being analyzed credible forecasts project revenue increases above spending increases. More importantly, Bernie's plan changes the distribution. So we can likely have a smaller deficit than otherwise to get to full employment. Moreover, Bernie's spending improves vital infrastructure, improves health outcomes, improves education outcomes, etc. The second and third order fiscal effects of these changes in the "real economy" have yet to be considered in any analysis I've read. For instance, student loan debt has major paralyzing effects on the private credit expansion. For example, a college grad with a good job and no debt may be able to borrow $100k to buy a home. That adds $100k to the credit expansion. But if they have a $40k student loan debt, they can't get that loan. Maybe they can't save sufficiently for a down payment. So the overall credit expansion is $60k less than it otherwise could be. Government provided student loans should be thought of as a form of government spending, and the student loan debt as an education tax bill.

So by eliminating student loan debt and medical expenses, most people are looking at a net disposable income increase even with the tax increases. That's a good thing.

Now, I've said it before and all say it again, I think we can do all of Bernie's new spending plans without a single tax increase. I don't care how crazy that sounds. The limits are inflation and we should base tax policy on credible inflation forecasts, not projections to balance the budget or reduce gov't deficits.

Sanders' proposal is based in the world of out of paradigm thinking and the reasons for it are political. Hard enough to run for President alone without also having to teaching the American public operations and basic economics. He's hit a happy medium between deficit terrorism and progressive economics. The funds to pay taxes and buy government securities come from government spending and there is no other way to do it. All government spending is marking up accounts in the banking system, all taxation is marking down accounts, and all government borrowing operations are a matter of moving funds between checking accounts and security accounts. That's it. That's all that is going on.

Ideologically and economically I'm opposed to tax increases, but I will be voting for Sen. Sanders for President because I'm vastly in favor of his spending plans. If the tax increases lead to fiscal drag as I suspect, we can reassess and cut taxes then, even retroactively. But what we can't do is go back in time to fix roads, educate and heal people, etc. We have third world conditions in America. It's an unforgivable sin and a crime against humanity by our leadership. We are losing the War on Poverty based on our mission objective to eradicate it.

Why are there even deductions for the top brackets. They have gotten the upper rate decreased . In view of the debt I can't see any logical reason to give tax breaks to incomes that are growing as the debt grows.

Since Nixon took us off Brenton Woods, the US government has been free from the last vestiges of the gold standard. FDR closed the domestic gold window during the depression. Nixon shut down the international gold window that Bretton Woods established after WW2. In short, the consolidated US government has absolutely no financial constraints on how many US dollars it can spend. The US government is a monopolist of the currency. It faces absolutely no financial solvency constraints. What it does face are real resource limits, i.e. the amount of stuff that can be produced by our economy. If the US government tries to spend more than we can produce at current prices, prices go up as the US government's demand competes with the domestic private sector's and US export markets' demand for U.S. goods and services that are in shortage based on the new aggregate demand. So freedom from financial constraints does not mean freedom from real constraints. There is only so much our economy can produce, and while it is a lot more than most presume, there are limits. Deficit Terrorism is not a part of the Progressive agenda. Our goal should never be a budgetary one. The gov'ts budget should balance the economy, not the gov't budget balance. Real outcomes are the concern, not government budget outcomes. Full employment and price stability with a rising standard of living should be our agenda.

Carlitos, excellent piece; I fully agree that this is a "third" world country related to the subjects you mentioned. Take Denmark for instance, they have all the things Bernie wants already for years and years. Even Canada is doing much better than us, especially under the young Trudeau.

Why is there so much aversion to paying and raising taxes. I have always analogized taxes as maintenance dues. There is no drawback to a safe country. Taxes pay the bills. Cutting back on paying the bills affects everybody except the independent. I have listened to people that don't pay taxes and even show a net gain from taxes. Working poor getting thousands back more than they paid. Getting back more than they earned and even they have been brainwashed into opposing taxes and raising taxes. I have been in the grocery line and heard people with food stamps supporting Trump. And before that heard similar people quoting Rush. A number of shops that I deal with have Rush on the radio. Employees in the repair shops making 40k listening to Rush. Listening to criticisms about hundred dollar hammers and toilet seats and using that to criticise government spending and taxes. The right wing talk stars are self elected, run unopposed and have no term limits. They teach millions based on lies and innuendo. Those are the politicians we should be worried about. Free speech and right to assemble should be reconciled with truth. A political commentator that rises to authority should be regulated.

If it were recognized that taxes are for regulating aggregate demand and not providing government the funds to spend, the right-wingers would have a much harder time making their anti-government spending case.

Why did we steel this land from it's former (foreign) owner? The elite ignoring the rest and deciding what was best for them. The common interest was of no interest.

Why is it that those that "represent us" are always asking how to pay for anything and everything for the common benefit of all citizens.

However, when it comes to conflicts all over the world, and the profiteering that results, that question never seems to surface. How come every time there is yet another huge tax break or subsidy for Corporations, the Party never asks how "we" are going to pay for them?

The only reason these things are so complicated, is because we hire lawyers to write things in ways we can't possibly understand. How else would so many unrelated things get attached to them.

It kind of all went to heck after we started having the kind of people asking what the meaning of it, is.